Того самого преподобного й богоносного отця нашого Марка Подвижника послання до Миколая-інока

The same venerable and God-bearing father Mark the Pilgrim, the message to Nicholas the Monk Beloved son Nicholas, how long ago you grieved for your salvation and many worries, living for God, you told us about yourself, with what labors and fervent desire you wanted to cling to the Lord: pay attention to it with life, and restraint, and patience from all evil, and with many vigilance and strong prayer moving up; and what curses and the multitude of carnal passions rise up in the fleshly nature, and a sinful law rises up on the soul, which opposes the law of our mind. You complained that you were excessively saddened by the passions of anger and lust, and you sought some way and verbal advice as to what labors and feats should be performed in order to conquer these destructive passions. And at that time, as much as possible, we counseled your love for her, offering soul-beneficial insights and wisdom and showing by what labors and ascetic efforts, with understanding and enlightenment of verbal knowledge, a soul that lives by faith according to the Gospel, when it is supported by grace, can overcome the evil passions that we have already mentioned, which originate from sin. From which passions, through inclination and habit, the soul seems to have taken an image, because they attract it more than others, about these it must raise a vigilant and continuous feat, until it subdues the carnal and wordless actions of the heart, which at first it itself obeyed and which attracted and enchanted it, because it often remembered them and was filled with evil thoughts. Since we are a little distant from you, – in body, and not heart, – having gone into the desert to the true workers and ascetics of Christ, so that we too, at least a little moving with the brothers who fight against the adversary and valiantly resist the passions, put aside laziness, drive away despair, reject negligence and accept all diligence and vigilance, hurrying to please God, therefore a little advice and instruction I took the trouble to put it in writing for your sincerity. What I told you personally, you will soon read, briefly explained in the small tips of our letter, you will enjoy the spiritual benefit as if we were present here. So, the beginning of your benefit according to God, oh son, you should start from here. Do not forget and constantly remember that in ceaseless edification, you meditate on all the plans and benefits of the man-loving God, which have served you and are happening for the salvation of your soul, and not, covering the game with covert forgetfulness or because of despair, to forget the many and great His benefits and because of this, live your time unprofitably and ungratefully. Such an unceasing memory of the thorn in the heart will always prompt him to confess, repent, to give thanks with a broken soul, to all good efforts, to good habits and to all virtue according to God. The heart will always lean with conscientious thought to the words of the prophet: “How shall I repay the Virgin Mary for all that He has given me?” (Ps. 115, 3).When the soul thinks about the favors of the man-loving God, which she experienced from birth, or from how many troubles she was saved many times, or how many times, having fallen under the power of evil, and falling into sin many times of her own free will, she was not justly delivered to destruction and death to the spirits who were tempted, but the long-suffering, man-loving Lord, despite her sins, awaited her return, who of her own volition served passions and enemies and evil spirits. He nourished her, covered her and cared for her in every way, and finally, with a good gesture of his hand, she guided her to the path of salvation, and put in her heart the love of ascetic life, and strengthened her desire to leave the world and its delusion of carnal passions with joy, and decorated her with an angelic image of the ascetic order, and made it so that holy men would easily accept her in the assembly of the brotherhood. Who, having a good conscience and thinking in this way, will not always have a broken heart, having received such a pledge of previous good deeds, without first having done a single good deed? Will such a person not always have firm hope, saying to himself: “Although I have not done any good deed, but I have sinned a lot before Him, lived in carnal impurities and in many other sins, He did not commit my sins and did not repay me for my iniquities, but gave me such gifts and blessings for my salvation. When I completely devote myself to further serving Him, living blamelessly and rising in virtues, what kind of blessings and spiritual gifts will grace me, strengthening, purifying and instructing me in every good work?” Therefore, he who always has such a thought and does not forget God’s favors, motivates himself, and directs, and forces himself to learn the virtue of goodness, and is always alert to every act of truth, always ready to do God’s will. For the sake of this, my beloved son, that by the grace of Christ you have a natural mind, keep this constant reflection and good instruction always in yourself, so that you are not covered by harmful forgetfulness and do not be hindered by disbelief, which make the mind vain and lead you away from life, do not be tempted by gross carelessness, do not be led away by carnal lust, do not be overcome by gluttony, and do not be enslaved by lust mind, and you will not associate with stray thoughts, so as not to be defiled, anger that gives rise to brotherly hatred will not prevail, some insignificant matter will not be saddened, malicious thoughts about your neighbor will not come to mind, deviating from pure prayer to God, and the mind will not fall into captivity, it will not become a beastly idea to watch over a like-minded brother.For such wordless habits of carnal wisdom, the mind will be bound in the conscience and to the evil spirits that obeyed them, will be handed over to punishment for a certain time, until it comes to its senses, will be overwhelmed by sadness and despair and that which has destroyed the desire for God because of all the mentioned things; will again begin to perceive with great humility the beginning of the path of salvation; and, having labored a lot in prayers and all-night vigils, destroying the mentioned things by humility and telling God and his neighbor, he begins to sober up and enlightened by the gospel understanding, enlightened by God’s grace, knows that the one who did not give himself completely to the cross with humble and humbled wisdom and did not throw himself under the feet of everyone to be trampled on, and humiliated, and mocked at Him, and insulted, and mocked Him, and mocked Him, and He will endure all this with joy for the sake of the Lord, not at all aware of human glory, or honor, or praise, or the pleasure of eating and drinking, but he cannot be a true Christian. So, when such feats, and honors, and crowns await us, how long will we pretend to be pious, who serve the Lord with all our might? People honor us, seeing us as such, but He who knows the secret sees us as completely different. Although many people honor us as saints, but we are still fierce in temper, the apostle says about us: “For they have a confession of godliness, but their powers have renounced it” (2 Tim. 3, 5); many honor us as virgins and pure, but before Him who knows the secret, we are defiled by impure union with promiscuous thoughts and soiled by the actions of passions, dulled by human praise and blinded by the mind. As long as we walk in the bustle of the mind, not taking up the evangelical wisdom and not knowing life according to conscience, in order to diligently follow it, in order to find courage in the conscience – are we still based on the imaginary truth of the external person, because we are deprived of true knowledge and only flatter ourselves with external teachings, wanting to please people and seeking from them glory, and praise, and honor? The incorruptible Judge will truly come and “illuminate what is hidden in darkness and reveal the thoughts of the heart” (1 Kr. 4, 5), who is neither ashamed of the rich nor merciful to the poor, despite the appearance and revealing the truth hidden inside. True ascetics and sufferers who live according to conscience will be crowned in the presence of angels before their Father, and those who pretend to be pious in appearance, and only show a visible life to people and vainly assert themselves on this, and flatter themselves with the mind, will expose them before the heavenly Church of the saints and before all the heavenly host, and those who are deeply ashamed, will send them to the darkness of the barn, like unwise virgins, who outwardly kept their virginity – they were not banished for that – and they also had a little oil in their vessels, that is, they were partakers of some virtues and external feats and certain gifts.That is why their lamps burned until a certain time, but because of carelessness, and ignorance, and despair, they did not think and did not recognize in themselves the multitude of passions that worked through malicious spirits, and because of opposing actions, their knowledge melted, combining with thoughts and being secretly tempted, and the most spiteful envy, jealousy that hates good, overcame them. discord, love of strife, hatred, anger, sorrow, malice, hypocrisy, fury, pride, vanity, cannibalism, self-indulgence, love of money, boredom, lust of the flesh, lustful thoughts, unbelief, the fear of God was not in them, they were overcome by fear, sadness, contention, weakness, sleep, haughtiness, justification, arrogance, pride, gluttony, intemperance, usury, the fiercest despair, and subtle actions of sin. Those virgins who had good deeds and an honest life, which they wanted to do in front of people in order to have praise from them, although they were partakers of certain gifts, sold them to the spirits of vanity and cannibalism and, uniting with other passions, mixed good deeds with cunning and carnal philosophies. Therefore, they became unpleasant and unclean, like Cain’s sacrifice, lost the joy of the Youth and did not enter the heavenly abode. Thinking and pondering about this, and testing ourselves, let us know and understand in what works we ourselves are, and while there is still time for repentance and conversion, let us make sure that our good works, performed in purity, are true and good, not mixed with carnal wisdom and not rejected, like a vicious sacrifice, because of insolence and negligence and impoverishment of true knowledge, so that, having endured the labor of virginity, and abstinence, and vigilance, and fasting, and love for strangers, having wasted our lives because of the mentioned passions, our alleged excuses would not turn out to be a vicious sacrifice and become unpleasant to the heavenly priest – Christ. Therefore, my son, it is good for those who want to take up the cross and follow Christ to take care of knowledge and understanding in advance, without ceasing to test their thoughts in themselves and to strive for salvation and knowledge in many ways, and to burn with great love for God, and to ask like-minded and single-minded servants of God who strive for the same feat – because he who does not know where and how he walks is in the dark without the light of a lamp walks He who walks on his own, without evangelical understanding and guidance, stumbles a lot and falls into many pits and nets of the evil one and wanders a lot, and falls into many troubles, and does not know what his end will be. After all, many went through many labors, and endured fasting, patience, and numerous labors for the sake of God, but selfishness and imprudence and not seeking the help of a neighbor made such of their labors weak and vain.You, therefore, my beloved son, at the beginning of the instruction, do not forget the blessings of the man-loving God towards you, when you are drawn away by the deception of sin and unbelief, but, having before your eyes either bodily or spiritual blessings, which you have experienced from your very birth until this day, measure them and always learn, as it is said: “Do not forget all His kindnesses” (Ps. 102, 2), – so that the heart moves easily to the fear of God and love, to live a vigilant life to the best of your ability, to have a virtuous life, a pious conscience, a virtuous word, a righteous faith, a humble wisdom – in other words, to give all of yourself to God, persuading yourself with the memory of His benefits, which you received from a good and man-loving God, so that in itself, such with the memory of good deeds, and also with the help that comes to you from you, with love and desire, your heart was wounded, because to others, much better than you, He did not do such miracles as He did to you with His unspeakable manly love. Everything, therefore, that was good to you from God, try to keep it in your memory forever. Remember incessantly that great and wonderful grace and beneficence that He gave you when you sailed away with your mother, as you told us: when that terrible and fierce storm and agitation arose at night, and all who were on the ship, together with the sailors and with your mother herself, perished in the deep, and by the glorious divine power only you and two others were thrown ashore and saved, and how He arranged for you to come to Ankyra and there a generous lover received you in a fatherly manner, and in love united you with a very reverent son Epiphanius, so that both of you, taught by a reverend man, came to the path of salvation, and the holy servants of God accepted you as their children. What do you have that is worthy to repay the One who called your soul to eternal life for all the benefits that God gave you? Now you must live righteously not for yourself, but for Christ, who died and rose again for you, in every virtue, truth, in every fulfillment of the commandments, always seeking “what is the will of God, what is good, what is acceptable, what is perfect” (Ps. 102, 2), and try with all your might to grasp it. Even your youth, son, obey the word of God as much as it requires of you – give your body, “as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God: religious service […] intelligent” (Rom. 12, 1) and reduce and dry up all phlegm of carnal lust with small needs and a small amount of drinking, and all-night vigils, so that you yourself may say, as commanded: “For I have become as if bellows in the cold, but I have not forgotten your statutes” (Ps. 118, 83); and knowing that you are Christ’s, crucify your flesh, as the apostle said, with its “passions and lusts” (Ch. 5, 24); and earthly members of death, that is, not only fornication, but also impurity, which evil spirits cause in the flesh. And not only in this is the feat of true and undefiled virginity for the one who expects the crown, but also, following the words of the apostle, the ascetic mortifies the manifestation and movements of passion itself.And not only does he succeed in these feats, hoping to inhabit an angelic and pure virginity in his body, but he who ascends also prays to destroy the very mention of subtle lust only in thought without the movement and action of bodily passion, when the mind becomes inattentive. It is possible to cope with this only with help from above and strength, and the presentation of the Spirit. Are there those who are worthy of this grace? He who thus expects the crown of pure and supernatural and undefiled virginity, crucifies the flesh with active labors, mortifies the earthly members with long and continuous abstinence, exhausting the outer man and refining it, and weakening it, and drying it up, so that by faith and deeds and the action of grace, the inner man is renewed day by day, heading for the best, growing in love, adorning meekness, rejoicing in the joy of the Spirit, so that she may become gifted with the peace of Christ with love, guided by grace, guarded by goodness, embraced by the fear of God, enlightened by understanding and knowledge, enlightened by wisdom, taught by humility. When the mind is renewed by the Spirit with these and similar virtues, it will recognize the drawing of the divine image in itself, and will see the mental and indescribable beauty of the Lord’s image, and with self-taught and self-intelligent wisdom will grasp the wealth of the bequeathed law. Refine, therefore, O son, the young flesh, and with all that we have already said, enrich the immortal soul, with the aforementioned virtues, renew the mind with the cooperation of the Spirit. The young flesh, weighed down by various dishes and drinking wine, becomes like a boar ready to be gored, and the soul is gored by the burning of bodily sweets, and the mind is captured by the kindling of fierce lust, because it cannot resist carnal sweets. The influx of blood causes the departure of the Spirit. Especially young men do not even come close to wine, so that the great fire, which manifests itself in the internal action of passion, and externally doused with drinking wine, due to which the carnal passion is inflamed even worse, does not drive away the spiritual pleasure of painful affection and does not create an idol and insensitivity in the heart; but, longing for spiritual things, let young people not even drink enough water – very much, because a lack of water helps to preserve purity. When you try it in practice, you will see for yourself. Not in order to put a yoke on you, we impose this on you by law or command, but we give it as a thought and a way – a good help for true virginity – and we kindly teach and advise a certain virtue, leaving it to your free will to do as it wants. Come again and let us talk a little about the wordless passion of anger, which devastates, and disturbs, and darkens every soul, and when it acts and moves, makes a person look like a beast, especially a person who is very prone to it and is quickly ready. This passion is especially asserted and strengthened by pride, and it cannot be destroyed. As long as this devilish tree of bitterness, and anger, and rage is watered with the evil water of pride, until it blooms well, grows well and will bear the fruits of many iniquities. And so strong is the building of the wicked in the soul, established and strengthened on the foundation of pride.When, therefore, you want this tree of iniquity, passion, bitterness and anger, and rage to dry up in you and become barren, let the ax of the Spirit come and cut it down and throw it into the fire, as the Gospel says, and destroy it with all sin. When you want this house of iniquity, which the evil one is always fiercely building in your soul, collecting, like stones, various weighty and senseless reasons, works of nature and words in thoughts, and erecting the building of sin in your soul, supporting it and strengthening it with thoughts of pride, – if you want to destroy and dismantle this house, then have the humility of the Lord, not for being in your heart, who such is the Lord and what He has become for us, and from which the light of the manifested Deity descended from the heights, which the mountain beings can see by their power. In the heavens, all verbal beings glorify Him – angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities, authorities, cherubim and seraphim and unnamed spiritual forces whose names are not known to us, and He, according to the prophecy of the apostle, descended into the depths of human humility for unspeakable goodness, in all things becoming like us who sat in darkness and the shadow of death and were in captivity Adam’s transgression, and by the action of passions, the enemy ruled over us. When we were in such a fierce captivity and an invisible and bitter death reigned over us, the Lord of all creatures, visible and invisible, was not ashamed, but humbled Himself, accepting the dishonor of passions and the prohibition and the Lord’s sentence regarding the condemned man, in everything he became like us, except for sin, that is, except for the dishonor of passions. And what was inflicted on man by the Sovereign judgment as a punishment for a sinful transgression, that is, death, labor, hunger, thirst – having accepted all this, he was like us, so that we would become like him; The Word became flesh, that the flesh might become the word; being rich, he became poor for our sake, so that we may be enriched by his poverty; conformed to us through his great manly love, so that we may conform to him in every virtue. Since Christ came, the new man is truly renewed by the grace of the Spirit in the image and likeness, reaching the measure of perfect love, which banishes fear and is not subject to falling: love never falls. “God,” says the Apostle John, “is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God” (1 John 4:16). The apostles were worthy of this measure, and men like them learned virtue, and appeared perfect before the Lord, and followed Christ with their perfect desire throughout their lives. Therefore, the Lord accepted such humility out of love for us with his unspeakable manly love; always, without forgetting, think about this, that is, about the indwelling of God the Word in the womb, acceptance of human nature, birth of a woman, growth in the flesh, dishonor, annoyance, contempt, ridicule, reproaches, beatings, spitting, mockery, mockery, crimson, crown of thorns, the words of a hundred reishis, the cries of the lawless Jews, His fellow tribesmen: “Away! Away! Crucified!” – a cross, nails, a spear, being drunk with vinegar and gall, the triumph of the pagans, to the laughter of those who walked and said: “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross”, and we will believe in you (Mt.27, 40), and other passions that he endured for us: crucifixion, death, three-day burial in the tomb, descent into hell, as well as the fruits of the passions – what are they and how many are there? That is, from the dead resurrection, hell and death of captivity, souls who followed the Lord, to heaven ascension, sitting at the right hand of the Father, “higher than all principle, authority, power and dominion and every name, whatever it may be” (Eph. 1, 21). Honor and glory, all the angels of worship to the first one who rose from the dead, for His passion, according to the word of the apostle, who says: “Cultivate the same thoughts in yourselves that were in Christ Jesus. He, existing in God’s nature, did not consider his equality with God to be a prey, but diminished himself, taking the form of a servant, becoming like a man. Appearing in the likeness of a man, He humbled himself, becoming obedient even to death, the death of the cross. That is why God exalted Him and gave Him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven, on earth, and under the earth” (Phil. 2, 5 et seq.). This is the glory and height to which God’s truth led the man of the Lord to the eyes of suffering. Therefore, when you will remember this with love and desire, without forgetting, in your heart, you will not be overcome by the passion of bitter anger and rage. When the foundation of pride is destroyed by the humility of Christ, the whole building of iniquity, rage, anger and sorrow will easily collapse by itself. What cruel and stony heart will not be crushed, washed, humbled, always having in mind only the deity of the Only Begotten, who humbled himself for us, and remembering the prescribed sufferings listed? Will not the pride of one’s own will become earth and dust, to be trampled underfoot by men, as the Scriptures say? Can rage take over a soul that humbles itself and breaks down, looking at the humility of Christ? Will her anger take over? Will she be overcome by bitterness? But it seems that the forgetting of these useful and life-giving thoughts and the sister is boredom and ignorance, unanimous and common in action with these, the most difficult in the passion of the deepest part of the soul, which are not easy to discover and correct, covering and darkening the soul with fierce curiosity, they contribute to other sinful passions to act and nestle in it, because they drive the fear of God from the soul and put in it a carelessness about good deeds allow any passion to boldly enter and act. When the soul is covered with complete oblivion and pernicious boredom, and ignorance – the mother and nurse of all evils – then the wretched and blinded mind becomes attached to everything that can be seen, understood or heard, that is, when it sees a woman’s beauty, it is immediately seized by carnal lust. And so everything else that sinks into the passion-possessed memory, and that which is pleasant to see or hear, or that which is imagined in the thoughts, and bad science draws within the imagination, and defiles the wretched mind, possessed by passions, by the action of stray spirits. In addition, the flesh, when it is fat, or younger, or more moist, will be easily excited by such mentions and passion to do what it does, moving towards lust, either in a dream or in reality by committing impurity, although it does not actually touch the woman.Whom many people consider to be wholesome and virginal and pure, although he himself considers himself a saint, before Him Who sees what is hidden, he will be judged as unclean, and a fornicator, and an adulterer, and he will be righteously condemned on that day, if he does not weep and sob and, having refined the flesh with fasting and vigils, and incessant prayers, and having healed the mind with memories and teachings of the word of God, will not bring worthy of repentance to God, before whom he thought or did evil. The living voice that said: “And I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt. 5, 28). Therefore, it is useful, and most of all for young people, not at all, whenever possible, to hold a conversation with women, even if it seems that they are holy; if it is possible to avoid people altogether, then the battle will be easier and success will be more pronounced; and also watch yourself and eat little, and drink little water, and, being awake a lot, be in prayer, moving, and communicate and live with experienced spiritual fathers, and try to learn from them. It is harmful to live alone, on your own, without supervision, it is harmful to live with those who are not experienced in spiritual struggle – it happens differently for such people. After all, sin works in many ways, and enemy ambushes and networks are arranged everywhere. Therefore, if possible, one should walk together, that is, try to often come to wise men and strive, because when someone himself does not have the lamp of true knowledge due to the imperfection of spiritual age and childhood, then, walking with someone who has it, he will not be in darkness, he will not fall into snares and nets, and he will not be seized by the mental beasts that feed in the darkness, and seize and kill those who walk without the conditional lamp of the divine word. If you want, my son, to have a lamp of conditional light and spiritual intelligence in your soul, to walk without stumbling in the dark night of this age and for the Lord to direct “your feet” (Ps. 118, 133), when you desire the evangelical path, according to the words of the prophet, that is, to follow the most perfect evangelical commandments with ardent faith and to be a partaker of the passions of the Lord through desire and prayer, I show you a strange skill and purpose of spiritual practice, which requires not physical labor or feat, but mental labor and steadfastness of mind, and attentiveness, accompanied by God’s love and God’s fear – with such a plan you can easily defeat the enemy’s army, following the example of the blessed David, who killed a strong foreigner by faith and relying on God, and thus defeated tens of thousands of enemies with his men. And our word wants to point to three strong and strong strongmen, on which the opposite power of the thinking Holofernes was established – when they are overthrown and killed, all the power of evil spirits will quickly weaken. These same forces of evil, supposedly strong, are the three already named: ignorance – the mother of all evils, forgetfulness – the yogi’s sister and helper, and despair, which weaves for the soul a garment blacker than a black cloud and covers it, and confirms and strengthens the first two and unites them, and in a careless soul makes evil strong and unshakable.And from despair, forgetfulness and ignorance, other passions are strengthened and spread. They help each other and cannot exist without each other, they appear as the strong forces of the opposite and the strong princes of the evil one, they control a whole army of evil and strengthening spirits, and help to do what is planned, and without them, other passions cannot appear. When you want to win victory over these passions and the regiment of thinking foreigners is easy to defeat, with prayer and God’s cooperation you have concentrated in yourself and entering the depths of your heart, try these three strong forces: forgetfulness, and despair, and ignorance – the support of thinking foreigners who command other sinful passions, through which passions act and live, and gain strength in hearts voluptuous and in uneducated souls. And with great attention, and guidance of the mind with help from above, you will find the evil that is most harmful and unknown to others. Opposite to him is the weapon of truth, the memory of good is the cause of all good, and the mind is enlightened, cheering with which the soul drives away the darkness of ignorance, and the greatest possible vigilance, which prepares and prompts the soul to salvation. Having put on this armor of virtue, with the power of the Holy Spirit, with every prayer and supplication, you will valiantly and courageously defeat the thinking foreigners – the mentioned three strongmen, and most of all – with the memory of God. “Whatever is true, what is honest, what is just, what is pure, what is loving, what is respectful, when there is any virtue or anything praiseworthy, think about it” (Phil. 4, 8), driving away from yourself the prelude oblivion; destroying the pernicious ignorance of darkness with enlightened and heavenly knowledge, and with the most virtuous and best vigilance banishing ungodly boredom, which plants evil in the soul. Having acquired virtue not only by your own will, but also by the power of God and the help of the Holy Spirit, with great attention and prayer, you will be able to free yourself from the named three powerful forces of evil. When in the soul the agreement between the true knowledge and memory of the words of God, and good vigilance, which is created under the action of grace, is preserved, then even the trace of forgetfulness, and ignorance, and disbelief is destroyed in it and turns into nothing, and the grace reigns in the soul in the future, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord, to whom be glory and power forever and ever. Amen. our venerable father Simeon, by the grace of theology given to him by God, called the New Theologian, lived during the reign of Constantine Porphyrorodny in the 10th century after the Nativity of Christ. He was a disciple of Simeon, who was called the Pious, and, having learned from him ascetic feats, he rose to such a height of virtue and dispassion and received so much divine grace that it can hardly be described. This is written in detail in his Life, which consists of many poems. Because, so to speak, he took all the power of the Spirit of the Comforter into himself and, having absorbed His radiance, appeared as a source of theology, divine enlightenment as an inn, unspeakable mysteries as a sweet abode, a word, an abode of all wisdom and divine knowledge.Being enlightened by such power, he compiled a large number of writings from various opinions, which were written both in verse and in verses, and filled with great benefit. Choosing only these from among them, shall we contain them in this book; a great and immeasurable benefit is opened through them to the readers.